Aochen Li ASA002 A04 Week 3

Aochen Li ASA002 A04 Week 3

In the reading, ""The Time to Fight Is Now": Asian American Woman, Academia's Socially Engineered "Privileged Oppressed," Go Rogue", the author describes the dark side of the academia. She introduces the concept of "Social Engineering", which refers to a way to treat people as machines to be controlled to fulfill specific functions, and "privileged oppressed" which suggests that people who are privileged are in fact oppressed. The author talks about the problems related to academia and she discusses how Asian American women are treated inferiorly in academia. According to the reading, "Asian American women in the academy can experience this disjunction as a kind of violence that can lead to extreme results such as those documented in this volume, including physical and mental health consequences and shockingly low rates of tenure and promotion." From this part of the reading, the disadvantages which Asian American women are facing are severe. These results are caused by those who manipulate the academia and use it for their own benefits.

The depiction of academia whose external and internal are inconsistent in the reading shocked me. Since before I read this chapter of the book, I thought academia is a pure place compared to the officialdom, workplace. However, those dignitaries control academia and make it earn their benefits. They oppress the minor group of people like Asian American women and punish them if there is any critique. The unacceptable fact changes my former opinion. Asian Americans are often regarded as a silent group of people. I think this is one of the reasons that Asian American women are oppressed. From my perspective, we should be braver to uncover the truth, to speak out the unfair, to fight with the injustice.

Reference:

Rodríguez, C. O. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://inciteseminars.com/decolonizing-academia-poverty-oppression-and-pain/

Valverde, K.-L. C., & Dariotis, W. M. (2020). Fight the tower: Asian American women scholars resistance and renewal in the academy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.